Another new Beginning

I think I have discovered in myself a new beginning. For two days this week I attended a leadership course for women. It is a three day course, with the third day in August and between now and then we have homework to do.

I think I sought out this leadership course for both a concious and an unconcious reason. Conciously: I have been running a team at school now for 2 1/2 Years and I have never had any formal leadership training to help me develop my skills. I am also hoping to continue taking on more responsibility within the school and this year, running all the Junior school (7-9) curriculum programs has certainly left me busier than I have ever been before, and dealing with more people than ever before. I believe in constantly learning and improving and I think I certainly have a long way to go in developing and working on my leadership skills.

It was not until the second day of the course though that I started to really clarify why I had subconciously sought out leadership training. I think that this last year or so I have been searching. I have been feeling lost at school, not sure what the future holds for me and unsure how to deal with the uncertainty (I really don't deal well with uncertainty). When you don't know where your career is headed it makes it really difficult to set goals and to imagine yourself achieving them. I have been loving my job; don't get me wrong - to be challenged everyday is a satisfying thing to me and I feel that the more I am challenged the more I strive to achieve. The only problem is that I have been feeling that perhaps some of the things I am doing and the skills that I feel I have to offer are going unnoticed. Or not even that they are not noticed, but that they are not acknowledged.

Part of this course asks us to create our own philosophy of leadership. Kind of a mission statement to live by I guess and in brainstorming this idea, I started with what I think people deserve or expect from a leader.
This is what I came up with:

• compassion
• understanding
• to be heard
• to be trusted and to trust
• to be valued
• to be proud of their achievements
• to be treated with respect

Through discussion with others in the group I clarified and added that people want to be acknowledged and affirmed in their roles.

I realised that in making this list I had thought back to my first year of teaching and remembered the influence that one of my AP's had on me. The support, encouragement and affirmation that I got from this person was one of the fundamental building blocks of my confidence as a teacher. Having someone who celebrated my successes, gave me confidence to take on more and encouraged me to challenge myself further.

What is also obvious to me is what a difference it makes to someone when the support that they once had is no longer there. Not that I think this person has decided they no longer like me and no longer want to encourage me, but in taking on more responsibility themselves, this person has less time to spend reaffirming me and letting me know that I am doing a good job and that I am on the right track and this has left me a little bereft. The problem for me is that this person is the one who I answer to, the one who is in charge and without that reassurance from them that I am doing a good job and that I am appreciated I become concerned that I am just floating along and going no-where and that the things I am working towards don't necessarily have a place in the school's vision.

Understanding my own need for validation and affirmation has made me realise an important lesson in my own leadership. Constantly tell your staff that you appreciate what they are doing and celebrate the things they do well. Ensure your team has a vision and that everyone knows their role in the team to bring about change and thus ensure that everyone is on the same page and working towards the same goal. I don't see myself as an insecure person (in fact sometimes I think I am a little too sure of myself) but I think that all it would take for me to have a bit more confidence that I am in the right place and that I am doing a good job would be to hear it.

A time of renewal and revitalisation

This year has been an interesting one for me already. For the first time since my first year of teaching I have wondered once or twice whether or not I have bitten off more than I can chew. I have the same classes as last year (minus some BYTES periods) and I have taken on the organisation of two other programs. This leaves me in charge of the programs from Year 7-9 and has given me the opportunity to execute organisation on a scale not seen by me before! I decided that since I will be getting married next year and might need some time off for a honeymoon, that this year I would cram it choccas with extra responsibilities. So add to my 7-9 programs my membership on Curriculum Committee, Managment Committee and School Council as well as involvement in our Building Futures bid, and leadership restructure and you can see that I am a girl that spends very little time at home. So little in fact that I actually missed the VCE formal (I have been to every one since I started teaching) because I wanted to have one night in two weeks where I was home before 9.30.
Having said that, I feel that despite the stress and the new challenges that are coming with this year, there are great personal rewards. I am enjoying the new challenge (although it sometimes makes it hard to go to sleep at night) and I am enjoying the number of new skills I am learning this year. I am loving the people I am working with and the feeling that I am making a difference. I am enjoying the feeling of renewal as the school welcomes it's former AP as Principal and some long over-due changes are made. I like the feeling that the school is looking towards the future, and not just concerned with maintenance. I like being a part of this.
A recent PD on wellbeing allowed me to make a change in my diet and a new gym membership has seen me take some time out from my schedule for myself - to ensure that I am happy and healthy and feel good about myself. I was hoping to get rid of my pot belly in time for the wedding and I am now well on the way! This year has also made me realise the importance of having this time to myself and looking after myself. When work is taking up the majority of your time and your headspace you need to make sure that you are at least attempting a balanced lifestyle.
I have also started a new organisational regime that may sound somewhat like a cult but involves an almost sickening affection for my newly acquired brother p-touch labeller. I am organising myself in a way that I have not before - with the help of the aforementioned labeller and many a manilla folder. Now I just need a filing drawer in my new office and I will be the most organised I have ever been in my life. It is a great feeling to take control - especially when there is so much going on that a small break in the chaos allows you to get back on your feet again. I am looking forward to the holidays. Partly because i will be able to rest and regroup but mainly because it will give me an opportunity to get my head above water and get myself up to date with all of my work without people giving me more work to do. Regardless of what happens I am enjoying the new opportunities and I feel like this year, like all that have come before it so far, will be bigger and better than the last.

A bit of fun

What Classic Movie Are You?
personality tests by similarminds.com

What Famous Leader Are You?
personality tests by similarminds.com

ramblings

I am beginning this post without a clear focus which may be a very bad thing, or therapeutic depending on how it all works out. Planning for next year has begun in earnest, with our first session on developing rich tasks and fertile questions on Friday. Unfortunately only four staff members from my team turned up but the ones that did managed to get a lot of great ideas down, for working on at a later stage. I have been working on a brainstorm in inspiration to try and collect my thoughts on organsisation of BYTES next year, curriculum development, resource collection and other ideas. I think it is important to keep assessing, keep thinking, keep planning. I think it is soon time to make a few decisions about the organisation for next year so that we can start getting things done. The fact that we are moving into the new centre next term, and that all of our bad habits will move in with us is not something I have forgotten. Before we can really start dealing with next year, we need to first put in place some structures for this year because the way we are currently doing things will not easily translate into the new centre. The curriculum, despite the original brief, does not really fit the model of rich tasks and fertile questions, albeit close, and so when we move into the open plan centre (all 125 kids and 6 staff members) there will have to be some careful organisation to avoid a disaster. This is the main reason that things have to change for next year. Next year there needs to be structure instead of improvisation, facilitation instead of teaching, and mentoring instead of marking. We are already well on the way to achieving these goals, but there is still a significant journey ahead of us. Sometimes though, like now, I lose all motivation for anything other than sleep. I find myself wasting valuable time blithering about when I should be planning, constructing, creating. Sometimes I find that I just can't be bothered. Is it because I didn't get enough sleep on the weekend, because of the Parent/Teacher interviews that have taken up 2 of the last 4 school nights? Or the short days that before an interview (where the students finish at 2,30) or the short days that follow (where the students start at 10) that are designed to give us a sleep-in but which only rob us of time in class so that we spend our days rushing through things and feeling like we have achieved nothing? Or am I just tired because I am not getting enough sleep or because I struggle to switch my brain from thinking mode to relaxing mode. Now I am rambling... bring on the hols!

multiple intelligences test

This one is interesting and would work well in a classroom - getting the students to do this test and actually trying to incorporate their preferences into your classroom would be a really interesting experiment (not one that no-one has ever done mind you, but interesting nevertheless).

my personality test-more to follow

One of the blogs I read had one of these and we have talked about personality types in one of the leadership courses I have been doing.

This is what it says about people with my profile:
INTJs are introspective, analytical, determined persons with natural leadership ability. Being reserved, they prefer to stay in the background while leading. Strategic, knowledgable and adaptable, INTJs are talented in bringing ideas from conception to reality. They expect perfection from themselves as well as others and are comfortable with the leadership of another so long as they are competent. INTJs can also be described as decisive, open-minded, self-confident, attentive, theoretical and pragmatic.

Interesting. Let me know what you think. I looked up the personality type that I got from the quiz in the leadership course and it was very similar but this one seems to be more accurate.
Next is the mutiple intelligence test!

I am at an interesting stage in my career. I feel like I just want to push on to new and bigger and better ventures and test myself and push myself in new positions with new challenges. I fear however, that I am missing the little things, the details and perhaps the reasons I am here in this profession in the first place. Perhaps in the pursuit of new endeavours and new horizons I have forgotten what my primary focus should be and that is on first and foremost being the best teacher I can be in the classroom. Sometimes I feel like I don't have time or energy to plan properly. When time and energy is also being taken elsewhere with other programs and other ideas, it is sometimes my classes that get left behind. That is not to say that I think that I am an awful teacher. I think generally I have a good rapport with my students, we have fun and we also learn together, but I feel that I am not innovative enough in my own classroom. I research and plan and speculate when it comes to programs on a whole school scale, but then I fear that I am not doing anything particularly exciting at all in my classrooms. When did I stop focussing on the classroom and start being an administrator. Not that there is anything wrong with admin - in fact that is where I want to be but at the moment I can't forget about the classroom. I need to remember that I have so much more to learn and stop trying to have everything yesterday. I need to relish the little moments and the little victories and have this be enough for me. I need to stop trying to conquer the world before I'm 30. I need to work on what I can achieve and realise that I can not do everything - at work or at home.

I think sometimes you get to this part of the year and you think about all of the things that you would have done differently if you had the chance but you dont have that chance. The same 150 kids come into the same classes each day and the systems that you set up at the beginning of the year and have positively or negatively reinforced remain. At the moment I just need to take some time to stretch my head above water and realise what I can still do and how I am going to do it. I need to refocus on the remainder of the year and what I am going to do differently. Then I just need to do it.